Extreme beer. Extreme cheese. What next?
In fact, I’ve been looking for extreme olive oil but that’s another story.
This picture tells its own story.
Thanks to Merchant du Vin marketing manager Craig Hartinger for sending it along. He saw the church in the smallish town of Kittitas (population 1,000) east of Ellensburg, Wash. He pulled over, backed up and dug out his camera.
Buy that man a Rochefort 10.
What do you pair with extreme* beer?
Exteme cheese. A hot item in Britain.
“We don’t try to make a he-man’s cheese that is the most vicious, sharp and violent. What we want to do is to give whatever potential is in the cheese the chance to express itself to its limit,” said the man who makes it.
I’m pretty sure this is different than the Kraft Easy Mac Snack Pack, Extreme Cheese you can buy at Amazon.
* Apply whatever definition you want to “extreme” – we’ll argue about it later.
Some facts related to hops I learned while reading about beers I (mostly) don’t drink:
– InBev uses well over 50% of the Saaz hops produced in the Žatec region of the Czech Republic in brewing Stella Artois. Proof.
– Heineken has more than 21 bitterness units (IBU) and 5.1% alcohol by volume, according to random market sampling. Heineken Premium Light, meanwhile, has half the bitterness and 3.3% abv.
– Samuel Adams Boston Lager has 31 IBU and about 4.9% abv, according to random market sampling. Sam Adams Light has 10 IBU and 4% abv. Proof.
Something I thought you needed to know.
Stella
Alan has written. The theme for the second round of The Session has been chosen:
“What do you really want in April? Frankly, I want an ale and one with some strength to get you warmed after a cold day turning half frozen soil. Something that can stand the keeping through the winter. Something with some flavour to match the warming of the earth. Something with an ecclesiastical aspect. I have just the thing in mind…
DUBBELS!”
Hey, I know somebody who wrote about a book about this “style” (in quotation marks because I don’t want New Belgium’s Peter Brouckaert knocking me upside the head).
I’m having second thoughts about not picking a New Mexico beer for our March tasting, so I’ll be leaning that way for April. Might have to try a few American and Belgian versions just to make sure.
Mark the date: We post on April 6. You may begin drinking and taking notes any time.
NEW BEER RULE #2: A beer consumer should not be allowed to drink a beer with IBU higher than her or his IQ.
I like – OK, love – hops more than most people you know. But I understand the frustration expressed by some brewers about the attention that highly hopped high alcohol beers (sometimes called extreme) receive.
The 25th highest-rated Imperial/Double IPA at Ratebeer.com gets a 3.96. The top-rated Dortmunder/Helles gets a 3.71.
I happen to think that 25th-rated Double IPA, Pizza Port’s Hop Suey, is a great beer, so please don’t consider this an attack on beer ratings sites or hoppy beers.
In fact what should really rile sensible brewers is high scores given even the 100th or 200th ranked Double IPA (whatever that might be). MORE does not automatically make a beer better. It often produces an out of balance, lousy tasting beer. This isn’t really about IQ; it’s about common sense.
For reference
– New Beer Rule #1.
– Wikipedia on International Bitterness Units (IBU) and Intelligent Quotient (IQ).